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Data from: Variation in patriline reproductive success during queen production in orphaned colonies of the thelytokous ant Cataglyphis cursor

Chéron B, Monnin T, Fédérici P, Doums C

Date Published: February 24, 2011

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8675

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First line : ID = individual identity; nest = colony number; caste: R = queen, W = workers, G = gynes (young queens); the number refers to the microsatellite locus number. For each microsatellite, the two alleles are given except when they are missing data. The file is formatedd for the software Relatedness. The individuals and loci surlined in blue refered to the individuals removed from the analysis in the paper (see the first paragraph of the result section).

AbstractIn genetically diverse insect societies (polygynous or polyandrous queens), the production of new queens can set the ground for competition among lineages. This competition can be very intense when workers can reproduce using thelytoky as worker patrilines that manage to produce new queens gain a huge benefit. Selection at the individual level might then lead to the evolution of cheating genotypes, i.e. genotypes that reproduce more than their fair share. We studied the variation in reproductive success among worker patrilines in the thelytokous and highly polyandrous ant Cataglyphis cursor. Workers produce new queens by thelytoky in orphaned colonies. The reproductive success of each patriline was assessed in 13 orphaned colonies using genetic analysis of 433 workers and 326 worker-produced queens. Our results show that patrilines contributed unequally to queen production in half of the colonies and the success of patrilines was function of their frequencies in workers. However, over all colonies we observed a significant difference in the distribution of patrilines between workers and worker-produced queens, and this difference was significant in three out of 13 colonies. In addition, six colonies contained a low percentage of foreign workers (drifters) and in one colony they produced a disproportionably high number of queens. Hence, we found some evidence for the occurrence of rare cheating genotypes. Nevertheless, cheating appears to be less pronounced than in the Cape Honey bee, a species with a similar reproductive system. We argue that worker reproduction by parthenogenesis might not be common in natural populations of C. cursor.